Hewlett-Packard Company A laptop for Christmas becomes a New Year's Resolution Not To Buy HP! Palo Alto California

This might be more a case of mis-understood obligations than anything else. I used to do tech support for HP, and I have actually dealt with your exact same issue before. Those rails that mount the drive are supposed to be fairly universal. Although, once in a great while, you will get rails that just DONT line up, no matter what you try. When this happens there is no clear-cut process, so it is up to the agent to find the best solution. Sometimes, even if you get the drive to "fit" you can still fail to make a proper connection and you therefore get a disk read error even though it looks like everything is in place. This process can also be painfully difficult to walk someone through over the phone. Here is what I used to do in that case.

I would give the user two options. Take the notebook, hard drive, and rails, to one of the HP authorized service centers (best buy, radio shack, ex-circuit city) and have them try. If the user doesn't want to do that they can send the entire notebook in and have the guys at the service center do it.

Now what it seems like is that you, as the user, became frustrated, didn't want to deal with it anymore, and called tech support, demanding of an agent something he is NOT authorized to give, and frankly, something you are not entitled to....I don't mean that to sound condescending, so let me explain.....

Here are the options you presented to HP….
1. Replacement of the computer which is defective .
2. Have a technician come out to my home to repair this computer.
3. Give me an HP credit toward the purchase of another HP laptop.

Here is why those things WONT happen

1: You warranty is a repair warranty. If you read your warranty statement you will find, written in plain black and white, that your options when a notebook has a problem are “At the sole discretion of HP a repair of the product or a replacement of equal value”. Now the two important things to note here is that your warranty is a “repair” warranty, not a “replacement” warranty. This means that HP is under a contractual obligation to repair your notebook if it goes bad. They include the clause that at their “sole discretion” they may replace the notebook to avoid someone sending in a notebook that has been totally destroyed and them having to totally rebuild it, they can just replace it in that case. So yes, technically HP CAN replace your notebook, but NO tech support agent is authorized to do that, and even if you got escalated to a case manager or something, your computer can clearly be repaired, there is no need to replace it. A replacement might be nice, but you are not entitled to one.

2: There are services available to do this, but they are not included in your standard warranty, and you have to pay extra for this to happen, and trust me it is not cheap. Again, HP is not doing anything dishonest, if you read your warranty you will see that you are entitled to no such service.

3: This would be very similar in concept to sending you a new notebook, again, this is something HP has no obligation to do. And as far as I know, there isn't even really a process set forth to allow this to happen even if a case manager deemed your situation appropriate.

I am not trying to defame you or insult you sir, but I have worked with computers A LOT over my career, not just HP but other brands as well, and they all handle this kind of situation pretty much the same way. You warranty states in clear English exactly what you are entitled to. I have read the entire HP warranty, it is not confusing, the wording is not misleading, the problem is that people NEVER read it. Then they call into tech support and become offended, frustrated, or “livid” when they discover the company is doing EXACTLY what they said they would do in their warranty.

I understand you feel you have been wronged, but you are posting in the wrong place. There is no “rip off” to report here. HP has not been dishonest, or mislead you in any way. All they have done is exactly what they said they would….how can that possibly be a rip-off? If you were not knowledgeable as to what you were entitled to under you warranty, that is not HPs fault. And all HP warranties are available online for free viewing, so you could have read up on it before making the purchase if it was that important.

I would also like to point out that “replacement warranties” do exist within the HP company. HP sells notebook warranties that entitle you to a replacement within 2-3 days if your notebook breaks, and for a technician to come out to your home if you have a problem that can be solved without a workshop. There are plans that allow for the kind of things you were expecting, but that is not what you got. You got a consumer model notebook with a repair warranty.

So you may file a complaint with the BBB or the Attorney general's office. But anyone with any legal sense will take one look at the warranty, one look at your case, and realize that all HP has done is what they said they would do, and so far in our legal system, a company following loyally to it's contact with a customer has not been deemed illegal. If the warranty had been misleading, confusing, or deceptive, you might have a case, but it's not. It is one of the most simple and strait-forward warranties I have read, and trust me I have dealt with just about all of them in my freelance work.

You situation is unfortunate, but there is no “rip off” here.

And PS to anyone else who may read this. People LOVE to threaten to report to the BBB, which is a good thing. I have personally made reports to the BBB before, they are great… but if a company is following the rules, and has done nothing wrong, threatening to report to the BBB means absolutely nothing and will NOT do anything for you, it'll just be paper work for some poor clerk.

If that came off as being critical of you sir, I did not mean it as such. You havn't done anything wrong, and I am not trying to jump your case. You are just like thousands and thousands of other people who get into these situations, and end up stressing themselves, stressing the companies, and leaving a bad taste in everyone's mouth.

It is important to understand that these multi-national manufacturers are NOT mom and pop stores. They have infrastructure larger tham many governments. EVERYTHING is a process and a guidline, a yes or a no, black and white. A compnay THAT large simply cannot be a bleeding heart to every individual extenuating circumstance that comes along....well they could be, but the product would cost three times as much. And that is the trade off.

These companies opperate in black and white. If you don't educate yourself as to what that is (the warranty) then you are only going to be dissapointed when you call in to realize you are talking to a giant numbers machine and not "Joseph" down at the Tech Shack who went to Highschool with your son. There are companies out there that offer that kind of personal service, but their products cost more. It is up to the customer to decide.

Here is a golden rule of customer service that holds true time and again...

Relaiable Product, Low Cost, Good Support....pick two.

Unless there is something medically wrong with your daughter(which i pray is not the case) your daughter does not have to have a computer. Most universities have a computer lab where your daughter can go to do her homework until she can get another computer. it just requires more work on her part. all my classes have a certain online portion to them and i do just fine getting them done in the computer lab. Now some people take notes on them but 95% of them surf the web in class do to WiFi in the building. As far as the warrenty is concerned i love how people think there entitled to something when they dont read the fine print. HP's warrenty is in black and white and if you cant understand the warrenty dont buy the computer HP warrenty is actually the easiest to understand compared to dell

It sounds like you got frustrated and angry and didnt want to deal with it and like most people wanted a quick fix. However sir thats not how it works and you are supposed to give them adequate oppurtunity to fix the problem. Have realistic expectations.

Don't you love it? The bigger the corporation the smellier the people in it I guess. Obviously the people who have posted are in some way connected with HP and they are in charge of spin / damage control.

Anyone reading my post will understand my level of frustration. The fact that I spent hours of my precious time attempting to address the issue myself at the behest of HP is apparently falling on deaf ears.

Oh well. I know better than to EVER buy another HP product and you obvious posers can enjoy your paycheck without my contributions!